First top landing, like a boss

This young man has made it all the way from the Taieri and beaten his bestiality addiction to have his first top landing and dynamic soar on the Otago Peninsula. Hope you like dubstep yo!

Naughty flying on Thursday

What a sweeet day. Lot's of play on the ridge and the newbees had some awesome flights and practice in a pretty damn strong NE. Here's a first person video from Super Dan, check it!

Max flys a combat in Crimea, Ukraine

location: mont Klementjeva Koktebel

Crimea Ukraine

I arrived in Kiev and was greeted by a local pilot Julia, then investigated Kiev. Later we met up with some of the local pilots for chili vodka and other delicacies. The next day, we checked out one of the local flying sites with a pilot named Victor, who later showed me around the Aeros factory.

I booked a ticket on the night train into the Crimea region- a 1000km haul which took 13 hours. Fun fun with no one on board speaking English! Sign language always works... most of the time.

So arriving in morning I then went on a trolly bus, a small 2 hour drive to the flying site 'Klementjeva Koktebel'. There was a small runway for towing, a north side and south side for dynamic and towing 500ft above ground. I was told it's the best school for hang gliding and paragliding in eastern Europe. There was a hang gliding bar and separated of course, a paragliding bar. I stayed at the hang gliding bar which also made fantastic food. There also was a hanger so no need to derig- just a 1 minute walk to launch, what more do you want?

The first day was low cloud base maybe 60 meters above takeoff. We still had a blast racing around the 3km ridge like mad men and women, a bit of acro, some low flying and safe landing.

Then Micheal invited me to check out their training methods, fun fun.

After that we had two days of bad weather, checking out Feodosia with some students.

Finally good weather! I pulled the borrowed combat L 09 out of the hanger and we flew slalom around the paragliders.

View from the take off

The hanger

The Camp

Take off south

On the training hill

The glider

The Ideal Conditions

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day and for the first time in ages we had a classic Sandymount day: Wind but not too much, Lift but not too strong, and shorts weather! Speaking of shorts, there have been a lot of young men showing their legs around the launch lately....someone's going to cause the Toxic dwarf to crash.
Massive congrats to Phil who had his biggest flight yet of 1hr 45min and was landing like a pro. Please give Phil a high five when you see him, one that makes your eyes water. A couple of us didn't actually arrive until after 5.30pm and still had some lovely thermals to bust a circle in. Dan Gnoth even flew the Toxic glider and launched from the Toxic launch with the Toxicity himself supervising. We'll be posting a full review of the dwarfish glider if we get any requests for it.

Canungra Classic 2011

Hey guys, we've got a few pilots flying in this year's Canungra classic: Jonas Lobitz, Hagen Bruggermann, John Smith, Lisa Bradley, Andrew Mckirdy, Guy Williams and Shane McKay. Expect some pictures and words from the Pilots soon, but until then here's a link to the results

Dalby Big Air Video

Hey Guys have y'all watched the latest video made by Lisa. Some sweet footage of the guys flying in Australia, check it!
Featuring Jonas Lobitz, John Smith, Hagen Bruggerman and some other famous faces

The silence of the lambing season

Sandmount is back! And what a first day for many. It was sunny and it was thermic. Never mind the smell of rotting sheep carcass floating up the hill, that just meant the wind was the right direction. It's been a while since so many gliders were out having an airing. We had some new boys as well as the welcome return of Lynn who was out doing some hovering and looking pro. Most of us busted a circle and tried to stick with the little punchy cores as long as we could, but didn't get far above 1200ft. Hagen however found the magic spot and flew over the bay to the road and back. Super Dan was carving some sweet sweet beat ups and got a couple of the oldies riled up and putting their gliders into turns exceeding 45 degrees.... how dangerous!

Limbering up

Super Dan is ready to ride some thermals, ride them hard

The Mexican

Dan read in Airborne that Fun's go up better in thermals.. so he figured if he flew a tandem one he'd be on top of the gaggle
Colour coordination, he get's it

The name is Super Dan, Ladies. Photography by Rob Stein

Over Dunedin
Daniel Goodman launches like a demon, flies like a god and lands like a gazelle.

The Pams Tease

"North Easterlies Developing" was the phrase we kept discussing. Hagen and John launched in what was thought to be just ideal and scratched their way back onto Mop, thermalling like champs all the way to the White house, but sadly bombed at Murderers leaving the task uncompleted. The rest of us watched their efforts, and being lazy thought we'd hang around and see if that NE would arrive properly. At 4pm it still hadn't, so we launched. The air was scratchy and thermic, not enough for the men it would seem but the girls stayed up for an hr or so. Late joiners Dan G and Tom maintained until the wind came well and truly at about 6pm. Congratulations to Richard who had his first soaring flight and did fantastically!

The Dwarf maintaining at launch level

Juan 'The Mexican'

Richard walking to the De-rig

Garcia Peak Photography by Rob Stein

Hagen is the Pilot. Click to enlarge

Garcia Peak

Usually in Otago we fly in the wilderness, out near the beach, or inland amongst the mountains. It's very rare to fly with a beautiful view of our city, however today was one of those special days.
The clouds looked promising as well but though John ventured over the back, he didn't find the lift he needed to reach Palmerston and a McGregor's mutton pie. Super Dan lived up to his name with his first fly off Garcia Peak and a classic Super Dan landing in Forrester Park. Nice.

John first up

Hagen makes the launch look easy

Some excited spectators watched Hagen in awe

View of Blueskin Bay

"All the heavenly glory"

Hagen cruising and looking for lift